Cakewalk Shut Down (Gibson)

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gibson5413

gibson5413

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I just heard from one of my very good friends that after 23 years of working at Cakewalk (most currently their Documentation Manager) he was laid off. It happened about 10 days ago. He said that Gibson is in big financial trouble, and decided to shut down Cakewalk completely, without even shopping the company around. The entire company was let go without notice. They also shut down Neat Microphones. Terrible news and timing! No comment about Gibson I just thought you all would want to know.
 
Gibson has been in Financial trouble for a while, same with Fender.

Gibson, Fender and Guitar Center are all in Financial trouble, if one of them goes they all go.
 
I'm a Cakewalk user and frequent their customer forum almost everyday. The website has been lit up for the last week discussing the shutdown and what we Cakewalk users are going to do now. What a mess!
 
Gibson in financial trouble ? how can this be with the genius they have running ....I mean ruining the company.
 
Seems like a lot of the big guys and retailers are in trouble. The internet just makes it so easy to buy and sell used gear. Pretty hard to keep coming up with unique variations to try and sell brand new stuff, particularly when your customers explicitly don't want very many unique variations on the classic formulas. Gibson doesn't seem to be run well, but I'm not sure what would right the ship other than massively scaling back its production.
 
Here are some comments directly from my friend...

"I’m confident it will work out for the better in the long run. I’m looking around, but plan to take some time off and not rush into anything. We didn’t get any severance package to speak of, but we’ll be fine. We were prepared that this might happen eventually, but not right before the holidays and before three major product releases. I’m looking forward to new opportunities and challenges after so long with the same company. I have many contacts and will try to stay in the music industry as long as the opportunity is interesting. Commuting was getting old, so it would be nice to work more from home."

Again, I just feel bad for my friend. Very unfortunate that after 23 years the Cakewalk employees didn't receive any severance. To me...that is unacceptable! Thank goodness he was ready for something like this.
 
Wow no severance the controller had the checks cut knowing this was going to be a brutal holiday for loyal employees I've been there it's awful
 
Cakewalk is not dead... Yet. Gibson just shut the operations down so they don’t have to pay the employees and benefits. This helps the earnings numbers. Gibson will try and sell Cakewalk or Cakewalk will be sold or auctioned if Gibson files for bankruptcy soon, which is a very good possibility.

Cakewalk is worth money to someone, how much is to be determined. Gibson just shut it down so they wouldn’t have to pay them. Yes Gibson is desperate and the best thing for the Gibson brand Is for them to go bankrupt and have a good company buy them. But most likely a financial holding company will buy them and run them under the ground.

Typical example of Wall Street greed. Use an iconic brand name to continue to raise prices and cut corners on quality to maximize profits. The problem is people catch on and go somewhere else for good guitars. The huge dollar amounts Gibson paid artists over the years didn’t transfer to sales and profits.

They did it to themselves. Foreign made guitars are much much better than they used to and with many newer artists playing foreign and cheaper made guitars it is hard to charge thousands for a guitar that in many ways is inferior.

Gibson annually places in the top 5 worst companies to work for based on surveys from employees.
 
I didn’t even know Gibson owned Cakewalk. Sonar was my first daw.
 
gibson5413":e6o9959w said:
Here are some comments directly from my friend...

"I’m confident it will work out for the better in the long run. I’m looking around, but plan to take some time off and not rush into anything. We didn’t get any severance package to speak of, but we’ll be fine. We were prepared that this might happen eventually, but not right before the holidays and before three major product releases. I’m looking forward to new opportunities and challenges after so long with the same company. I have many contacts and will try to stay in the music industry as long as the opportunity is interesting. Commuting was getting old, so it would be nice to work more from home."

Again, I just feel bad for my friend. Very unfortunate that after 23 years the Cakewalk employees didn't receive any severance. To me...that is unacceptable! Thank goodness he was ready for something like this.
Click to expand...

Let your friend know we have several openings for talented engineers. Our office is about 30 minutes north of Boston. They can contact us at jobs@fractalaudio.com
 
It's a shame for the families of the affected. Terrible to lose a job with no notice. Even worse around the holiday.

I don't know how the greater musical instruments industry plans on surviving in this day and age. You can't keep shoving out a million guitars (my estimate for the entire industry) every year and expect not to saturate the market eventually. Especially in a time where guitar driven music is dying a slow, painful death and quality used guitars are so easy to find.

I mean, I'm trying to do my part, but there's only so many guitars I can buy!
 
cliffc8488":ze81mf3u said:
gibson5413":ze81mf3u said:
Here are some comments directly from my friend...

"I’m confident it will work out for the better in the long run. I’m looking around, but plan to take some time off and not rush into anything. We didn’t get any severance package to speak of, but we’ll be fine. We were prepared that this might happen eventually, but not right before the holidays and before three major product releases. I’m looking forward to new opportunities and challenges after so long with the same company. I have many contacts and will try to stay in the music industry as long as the opportunity is interesting. Commuting was getting old, so it would be nice to work more from home."

Again, I just feel bad for my friend. Very unfortunate that after 23 years the Cakewalk employees didn't receive any severance. To me...that is unacceptable! Thank goodness he was ready for something like this.
Click to expand...

Let your friend know we have several openings for talented engineers. Our office is about 30 minutes north of Boston. They can contact us at jobs@fractalaudio.com
Click to expand...
Very cool, Cliff! Thanks for jumping in here.

Chad, I'm sorry to hear your friend (and everyone else at the company) was let go suddenly, especially at this time of year. Best of luck to him.
 
Sonar user for MANY years here. I'm still trying to figure out what to do. I have thousands of hours logged and many songs on Sonar. I know its not the most popular DAW out there but it really was one of the best for those that just want to make music and not dick around with technology all the time. Feel really bad for the people who lost their jobs over this. I'm sure in the end it was just poor management and probably could have been avoided.
 
squank":1x7v5bgk said:
cliffc8488":1x7v5bgk said:
gibson5413":1x7v5bgk said:
Here are some comments directly from my friend...

"I’m confident it will work out for the better in the long run. I’m looking around, but plan to take some time off and not rush into anything. We didn’t get any severance package to speak of, but we’ll be fine. We were prepared that this might happen eventually, but not right before the holidays and before three major product releases. I’m looking forward to new opportunities and challenges after so long with the same company. I have many contacts and will try to stay in the music industry as long as the opportunity is interesting. Commuting was getting old, so it would be nice to work more from home."

Again, I just feel bad for my friend. Very unfortunate that after 23 years the Cakewalk employees didn't receive any severance. To me...that is unacceptable! Thank goodness he was ready for something like this.
Click to expand...

Let your friend know we have several openings for talented engineers. Our office is about 30 minutes north of Boston. They can contact us at jobs@fractalaudio.com
Click to expand...
Very cool, Cliff! Thanks for jumping in here.

Chad, I'm sorry to hear your friend (and everyone else at the company) was let go suddenly, especially at this time of year. Best of luck to him.
Click to expand...


Thanks Bill and Cliff! I really appreciate the thoughts!

Cliff, I passed on the info to him. Thanks again!
 
Hasn’t Gibson gone bankrupt once or twice before? Hate to hear about Cakewalk, sounds awful right here during holidays especially.

I doubt it’s greed that’s hurting them, but like most companies that go through this, it’s poor management that did not anticipate market changes or just ran things poorly. This goes across all industries, 9 out of 10 current Fortune 500 companies will not be a Fortune 500 company within a few decades. That’s just a historical fact as smarter companies come along and eat away at their market leads.
 
amiller":2jopaxfo said:
I'm a Cakewalk user and frequent their customer forum almost everyday. The website has been lit up for the last week discussing the shutdown and what we Cakewalk users are going to do now. What a mess!
Click to expand...
Same here. I really don't know what I'll switch to.
 
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